After making some mistakes on Thursday last week, I have been without my bike for four days. Tonight, I was able to pick the bike back up from the local bike mechanic, and get it hooked back up with Zwift.
I’d like to say all of the problems have been sorted, but I still have some gearing issues, unfortunately. These are of my own creation – due to playing with the limiting screws (I think!) before I took it in for repair. Hopefully I can resolve these before my next ride.
As I’ve been off the bike for a few days, and with some bigger plans in mind for the rest of the week, I decided I’d opt for my typical easy / blue workout, just to get the legs back into the routine.
I opted for London’s Greatest Loop taking in Leith Hill climb. The workout is gentle – 6 repeats of 145w with a 1 minute break in between each set at 105w.
Barely enough to break a sweat.
On very fresh legs I found the workout to be easy enough, and rather uneventful. I picked a gear, stuck with it, let ERG mode do its thing, and before I knew it, the hour had gone by.
The interesting parts (for me) came when I’d finished the workout.
Zwift popped up the end of ride report thing, but I dismissed it and carried on riding.
That’s when I realised – due to the incredible wobble – that I hadn’t fully fixed the bike onto the trainer. Whoops.
Also, whilst playing around with the gears after the workout was done, I found two problems:
- I still have some phantom shifting going on in the rear cassette
- I dropped to the little ring at the front and couldn’t get back into the big ring :/
However, on the plus side, the shifting does feel much smoother now.
Overall I am really glad to be back on the bike. I hate having to take enforced breaks. I feel frustrated and much more easily agitated when not riding.
I want to get a proper FTP test in – likely as my next ride. This means firstly I need to resolve the gearing issues.
Secondly, I’d quite like to get another race in. And thirdly, set my sights on that century attempt.
With the bike problems I’ve had, I’m potentially going to have to fit most of this stuff in a very short period, as new work looms on the horizon. That’s good, and bad, I suppose. I’d rather have a little extra time off still.
For the FTP test, I’m really hoping to break 200w. I figure riding at 210w / 220w may be a good move. Not sure how I will cope over 20 minutes at that pace, but there really is only one way to find out.
Lastly, I have managed to get my personal Zwift Leaderboards up and running. At the time of writing I have only managed to add the Volcano Circuit (Clockwise) and Innsbruck Forward KOM to the list. I will add a few more today.
I am aware of a few bugs still in this process – the Volcano Circuit Leaderboard is incorrectly tracking the Whole Lot of Lava times, too.
Always something.
